Reviews

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Nobody Lives Here ★★★★

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Nobody Lives Here ★★★★

Lex Lesgever was born on 1 May 1929 in the historic heart of Amsterdam, where Jews had thrived for centuries. He was barely 11 when the Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940. By May 1945, approximately 107,000 of the 140,500 of the country’s Jewish population were wiped…

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The Most Precious of Goods ★★★★★

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The Most Precious of Goods ★★★★★

There is something extraordinarily powerful about simple storytelling. Although Samantha Spiro, the narrator of this story is actually addressing a packed theatre, it felt like she spoke directly to me as she began ‘Once upon a time…’. The tale she tells is not a fairy story, although…

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Maestro ★★★★

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Maestro ★★★★

Much of the film Maestro is shot in black and white, but it opens in full colour. “I miss her terribly,” the older Leonard Bernstein says, of his late wife Felicia. At the piano he plays 'Postlude' (adeptly performed by Bradley Cooper), from his opera A Quiet Place, where the son mourns the loss…

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UKJFF 2023: Vishniac ★★★★★

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UKJFF 2023: Vishniac ★★★★★

In Berlin in 1933, seven-year-old Mara stands outside a shop once owned by a Jew. Now it sells instruments to gauge the shape of a skull, issuing certificates of 'Aryanism' if deemed appropriate. The photographer recording this moment was also a Jew; if apprehended by Nazi forces…

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UKJFF 2023: Less Than Kosher ★★★

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UKJFF 2023: Less Than Kosher ★★★

Daniel AM Rosenberg’s musical comedy Less Than Kosher follows self-proclaimed “bad Jew” Viv, a washed-up singer at 30. She finds herself deliriously hungover after Yom Kippur, but after a trip to her family’s synagogue manages to fall “ass-first” into a job as a substitute cantor. What…